THE ECONOMIST: The Knicks represent New York — and capitalism — at its best

“Even as the rich world enjoys low unemployment, record real household incomes and soaring stockmarkets, people have rarely been so gloomy.” So wrote The Economist in last week’s briefing on Gen-Z socialism.

That is true, of course. Yet to append a caveat: capitalism has recently been hosting a festival of inequality upon the most important staging ground of the new American socialism, New York City, and it is hard to imagine the city brimming with more excitement and even joy.

With the cheapest seats going for thousands of dollars and the most expensive for well over $US100,000, almost everyone in New York has had no hope of joining the elite of Wall Street and Hollywood at Madison Square Garden to watch in person as the New York Knicks, millionaire athletes “owned” by a billionaire, compete with other millionaires in the finals of the National Basketball Association.

Instead, New Yorkers are gathering in each other’s homes, piling into bars and thronging sidewalks outside restaurants to stare through the windows at the video screens as the Knicks, who have not won a championship in 53 years, contend with the San Antonio Spurs.

Gloom has nowhere been in evidence. Even grumbling, habitual among New York’s capitalists at least as much as among its socialists, has been hard to hear over all the cheering.

“What is really cool about this is it doesn’t matter if you’re red or blue, it doesn’t matter what the colour of your skin is, everybody’s in it,” says Aniket Gune, as he joins two colleagues from a meditation practice and thousands of other fans on June 8 for a free watch party in Bryant Park, in Manhattan, for game three of the best-of-seven series.

One of his colleagues, Ratna Mukani, adds, “Everyone is just happy and so nice to each other. And there’s so much love.”

Rising over the park lawn, the Empire State Building was lit at dusk in the Knicks colours of blue and orange, a combination that can also now be found, revoltingly, on bagels, pizza and cinnamon rolls.

Spectators outside the arena have not been complaining much about those inside. They know that celebrities such as Spike Lee and Ben Stiller were courtside even during the lean times, when the Knicks went a decade without a winning season.

What matters is that they are all fans. Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whose own run of political luck now includes this Knicks season, displayed his gift for making the most of that luck with the best description of what’s happening: “It feels like the transformation of the world’s greatest city into the world’s greatest small town.”

The Knicks’ long championship drought and famously rabid fan base help explain the euphoria.

So does the fact that this Knicks team does not fit the caricature of New Yorkers (and of capitalists) as self-obsessed, grasping, indifferent to the wants of lesser mortals.

Speaking of which: as though out to prove that his fellow New Yorkers can indeed still see red, President Donald Trump chose to attend game three in Madison Square Garden, drawing a thunder of boos after his presence upended the plans of thousands by forcing the cancellation of a watch party outside.

These Knicks are instead celebrated for some less-recognised qualities of New Yorkers, the ones that make the city liveable even if the subways are too slow, the rats too cheeky and the rent too damn high: their decency, playfulness and generosity towards each other. Interviewed courtside, these Knicks tend to say things like, “I don’t have an ego, that got burned out of my heart a long time ago.

And I’m out here to serve these dudes.” (So said Josh Hart, a guard who even more than most Knicks can be as earnest as he can be droll.) Jalen Brunson, the poker-faced, physically unprepossessing point guard hailed these days as the king of New York, has led the team not just through brilliant playmaking but by opting not to take the maximum salary available to him when he extended his contract in 2024. He left $113m on the table so the Knicks could afford other standout players under the league’s combined salary cap.

Mr Brunson, Mr Hart and a third Knicks guard, Mikal Bridges, were college champions together ten years ago when they played on the same team at Villanova University.

They form the nucleus of a “five-out” offence, in which not just one or two stars but all five teammates are capable of scoring from anywhere on the floor; their constant passing keeps the defence on the run. Combined with their own relentless defence, this strategy brought the Knicks 13 straight playoff victories.

That included the first two games against the Spurs, a more conventional team built around a crane-like, implausibly nimble centre, Victor Wembanyama. The Spurs snapped that streak by winning game three. But then in game four on June 10th the Knicks surpassed even their own previous nail-biting feats of resilience by achieving the greatest comeback in finals history. They overcame a 29-point Spurs lead to win by 1.

Does the from-each-according-to-their-ability ethos of the Knicks herald a socialist future for New York?

It does not, and not only because the players flog everything from burritos to underwear. Before the Spurs’ game-three victory ruined the chance of a sweep along with the rhyme scheme, fans had taken up a chant celebrating not just the city’s pluralism but its consumerism: “My mayor Muslim!/My bagel Jewish!/My Christian Dior!/Knicks in four!”

Maybe the Knicks’ ethos and style of play point instead towards a more enlightened capitalism, one in tune with other enduring qualities of New Yorkers: pragmatism, unpretentiousness and fierce ambition.

The stoical Mr Brunson showed a rare flash of irritation recently when a reporter noted that “some stars” would expect, unlike him, to dominate more of the play. “First, I’m not a star,” Mr Brunson replied evenly. “Second, I want to win.”